For the first time, Vator is holding Vator Splash NY, which will be held at Webster Hall in Manhattan on the evening of December 15.

Many early-stage startups are sprouting up in NY! And, venture capitalists are starting to take a serious look.

Vator, a leading platform for innovators and entrepreneurs to connect and learn from each other, and a provider of news and information through VatorNews, is looking to recognize and 10 promising startups across technology, including digital media, social media, consumer Internet, software, SaaS, iPhone apps, mobile, etc.

Who should apply? Entrepreneurs with seed- to early-stage startups across technology. This means you can launch at the event. Or you can be a company that's received no more than an A round and is no more than three years old. Those who've already made the stage "twice" at prior Splash events will not be allowed to present again.

What should you submit? Submissions are in the form of a Vator company profile. We encourage video as it gives us a better sense of who’s behind the company. But you don’t need one.

How do you submit?

Already on Vator? Just click the "participate in this competition" button on the top right of this competition page.

Not yet on Vator? It's quick, easy and free. First register. Then create a profile for your company. The more comprehensive your company profile is, the more likely to get votes, ratings and be reviewed. Once you create your company profile, then just click the "participate in this competition" button on the top right of this competition page.

How to win?

Get out the vote on Vator! More votes on Vator will drive up your chances of winning. The popular vote on Vator will have a significant weighting and as such will be a significant part of the judging process.

The popular vote will whittle the competition field down to the top vote-getters who will be considered semi-finalists.

The semi-finalists (either the top 15 or top 20) will enter Round 2. The judges will rate their 15 favorite semi-finalists and their input will account for 60% of the vote. The judges will take points away if a company does not provide enough information for them to rate. The popular vote will account for 40% of the vote, with each contestant's vote weighted against the leading vote-getter.

To win a free ticket!

-- Participants with more than 250 popular votes get one free ticket to the event.

-- Anyone who votes will be entered into a lottery to win a free ticket. Vator will give five tickets away to voters. tes.

This program has 2 rounds

Round 1

Round 2

Type:
Popular vote

Start date:
Monday, November 01, 2010 10:00 AM PDT

End date:
Friday, December 03, 2010 11:59 PM PST

Finalists: top 15 selected

Requirements:

Entrepreneurs with seed to early-stage startups across technology. This means you can launch at the event. Or you can be a company that's received no more than an A round and is no more than three years old. Those who've already made the stage at "two" prior Splash events will not be allowed to present again.

Rules:

The most 'popular' votes will determine the top 15 to 20 finalists.

Voters are limited to one vote per participant for the entire competition. Participants may vote for their own company. Vator and the contest organizers have the right, in their sole discretion, to take whatever action they deem appropriate to uphold the integrity and reputation of Vator, the organizer and the competition, including the right to void votes, or recalculate votes, in the event of, but not limited to, multiple votes from the same user from different IP addresses, or votes considered fraudulent, technical failures, errors or problems occurring with the site and/or Internet services, failure of judges to perform their duties. Vator also does not allow proxy voting.

Type:
Judges

Start date:
Friday, December 03, 2010 11:59 PM PST

End date:
Wednesday, December 08, 2010 11:59 PM PST

Vote weight: 40% popular vote from previous round and 60% judges.

Judging criteria

Novelty/innovation

Does this product/service solve a clear market problem? Is it a new and novel approach to solve a problem? Is there enough differentiation that gives this idea a fighting chance against competitors?

Market potential

Is the market a big macro opportunity? Does this startup have a clear market niche and user group? Did they indicate clearly their go-to-market strategy to attract users? Did they clearly articulate their business model? Did they demonstrate how they will compete effectively? Is this business a venture-backed opportunity or a life-style business?

Team

Is the team relevant to the opportunity? Does the team have the expertise to succeed? Is the team clear about the objectives? Can the team convey the opportunity?

Requirements:

Entrepreneurs with seed to early-stage startups across technology. This means you can launch at the event. Or you can be a company that's received no more than an A round and is no more than three years old. Those who've already made the stage at two prior Splash events will not be allowed to present again.

Rules:

Only the semi-finalists are allowed in this round.

Startups "must" fill in all information in their company profile. Judges are busy people. So be sure to add as much information as you can in your profile. Also provide PPTs and videos (if you have any).

Voters are limited to one vote per participant for the entire competition. Participants may vote for their own company. Vator and the contest organizers have the right, in their sole discretion, to take whatever action they deem appropriate to uphold the integrity and reputation of Vator, the organizer and the competition, including the right to void votes, or recalculate votes, in the event of, but not limited to, multiple votes from the same user from different IP addresses, or votes considered fraudulent, technical failures, errors or problems occurring with the site and/or Internet services, failure of judges to perform their duties. Vator also does not allow proxy voting.

Peter Flint is a general partner based in our Boston Office. He joined Polaris in 2003 and brings over 25 years of experience as an operating executive in the consumer media industry combined with building senior management teams for early stage venture backed companies.

Experience:Prior to joining Polaris, Peter was a managing director with Ramsey Beirne Associates, the leading provider of executive searches to high growth, leading edge information technology companies. Peter has enjoyed a successful 15-year sales and marketing career in the cable television industry, initially with Showtime Entertainment and MTV Networks. He also worked with the Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins to develop and launch the New England Sports Network. In addition, as vice president of Sales and Marketing for QVC Network, Peter directed a team to secure long-term distribution agreements with the nation's largest cable companies, which was instrumental in the successful initial public offering. Peter was an early entrant in the interactive television marketplace as vice president of Video Jukebox Network, the company that built out the first nationally distributed, on-demand television network.

Boards:Peter currently serves on the Board of BlackArrow, JIBE, Infinian and Stickybits.

Brian Hirsch is a Managing Partner of Greenhill SAVP and a Co-Chairman of the Fund’s Investment Committee. Prior to joining SAVP in 2004, Mr. Hirsch was a Principal at Sterling Venture Partners and led the firm’s investments in technology-related companies. Mr. Hirsch is currently a board member of Flat World Knowledge, FTRANS, HomeSphere, MyNines, Pontiflex, RealDirect, Spanfeller Media Group, Three Stage Media, and TRAFFIQ. Brian previously sat on the board of YellowJacket (acquired by the Intercontinental Exchange, NYSE:ICE) and KnowledgeStorm (acquired by TechTarget, NASDAQ:TTGT).

Prior to joining Sterling Venture Partners, Mr. Hirsch was a vice president at ABN AMRO Private Equity (“AAPE”), the U.S. venture capital group of ABN AMRO N.V., one of the world’s largest banks. Before joining AAPE, Mr. Hirsch worked as a senior consultant at KPMG in the Information, Communications & Entertainment (ICE) practice, where his clients included General Electric, CBS/Westinghouse and the Tribune Company.

Traver is a Private-Equity & seed money backed entrepreneur with a track record of building long-standing start up’s. He is currently looking to bring strategic capital & executive guidance to a select start up or early stage company.

Traver sits as Chair on the Board of Directors of Remedy Health Media- a leading cross platform company in consumer health. Board members include the Private Equity partners of Veronis Suhler Stevenson www.vss.com who invested $33MM into his enterprise.

As the co-founder of RHM and CEO until this past summer, Traver led the company to become a renowned "Leader in Consumer Health Educational Marketing". To accelerate its growth, he successfully engaged the leading Private Equity firm in the Communications space-VSS.

Having launched the company in the mid 90's, he led the successful transformation from being publishing-centric to its position today as a "cross channel communications company". Core to that was a build & buy strategy in the digital space while changing the corporate culture to support the (r)evolution. Accelerators of the strategy include the build of a digital lead gen platform www.remedylife.com,&nbsp; the health portal acquisition www.healthcommunities.com , and the recent acquition of the mobile health enterprise www.intelecare.com .

At the same time in the late 90's, Traver founded & chaired www.cornerdrugstore.com. This was an early "bricks & clicks" company which focused on bringing new customers via the internet to the challenged independent pharmacy arena. The startup rose $1.8M in angel funding. It was later sold to the JM Smith Corporation.

Traver has a BA in History & a Minor in Economics from the University of MN. He resides in Greenwich CT.

21 years Investment Banker having started at Goldman Sachs in 1980 after Columbia Business School. Left Goldman voluntarily to found boutique firm and served as first President. Launched new lines of business at Lazard Freres and also Shattuck Hammond Partners. At SHP started health care technology practice focusing on software and Internet in 1998. Member of New York New Media in late 1990's. Investments include LCconnect, Giaim Media, and Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. One of the women profiled in the book, Beyond 85 Broads. Member of Golden Seeds, Angel Investing Group.

Non-Profit Boards include Trustee of the Citizens Budget Commission for 15 years and Executive Committee for 8 years. Director, Heart and Soul Charitable Fund for 5 years and Honoree in 2005. Founding Director for Project Sunshine, First Gala Chair, mentor to founder. President of the Congregation All Souls Church 1999, Trustee 1997-99 and now Deacon. National Board of Legal Momentum 5 years.

Amish Jani is a Founder and Managing Director of FirstMark Capital and focuses on seed and early stage investments in software, cloud computing, digital media, and Internet sectors. Prior to founding FirstMark Capital, Amish served as a Partner with Pequot Ventures. Amish sits on the boards of AppFirst, Aveksa, CollegeOnly, Conductor, IMImobile, Knewton, and Lumosity. Amish holds an M.B.A. and a B.S. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Follow Amish on Twitter at @amishjani.

Amish is an enthusiastic supporter of the New York City entrepreneurial community. He was recently named to the Silicon Alley Insider 2010 100 List, and regularly speaks at high-profile entrepreneurial events including SAI Startup 2010, TechCrunch Disrupt and TieCon 2010. He is actively involved with the Mayor’s office, including initiatives such as Media.NYC.2020 and NY Venture Fellows, as well as the well-regarded incubator program TechStars in NYC. Amish has been featured in articles in Business Week, Internet Retailer, The Wall Street Journal and Forbes.com.

Andrew “Drew” Lipsher is a Partner with Greycroft LLC. Drew brings over fourteen years of media and entertainment experience to Greycroft. His experience has covered all aspects of the media business, including investment (private equity and venture), M&A, strategic planning, new business development, technology, operating and board level activities, restructurings, and divestitures.

As a Partner at Venrock in New York, David focuses on early stage venture investing in internet and digital media companies. His active investments include Media6Degrees, Smartling and Crunchyroll. Previously, Pakman was the CEO of eMusic, the world’s leading digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes in number of downloads sold. After buying eMusic from Vivendi Universal, in the three years that Pakman ran it, he grew the business by more than 850%, from $7M in revenues to more than $68M. Pakman transformed the business from an obscure also-ran with 50,000 subscribers to the second largest digital music retailer in the world, with more than 400,000 subscribers and more than 12% market share.

Prior to joining eMusic, Pakman was Co-Founder and President of Business Development and Public Policy at Myplay, Inc., the company he co-founded in 1999 in Redwood City, CA that introduced the “digital music locker” and pioneered the locker category. In 2001, Myplay was sold to Bertelsmann’s ecommerce Group. Before Myplay, he was Vice President at N2K Entertainment, which created the first digital music download service. He also was the co-creator of Apple Computer’s Music Group.

Pakman is a graduate of and a member of the Board of Overseers at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science with a degree in Computer Science Engineering and is an avid musician and songwriter. He serves on the Board of Trustees of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping the academic community take full advantage of rapidly advancing information and networking technologies and holds a board seat with the New York Venture Capital Association.

Venrock is a premier venture capital firm with offices in Palo Alto, New York, Cambridge, MA, and Israel. Originally established as the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family, Venrock continues the eight-decade tradition of partnering with entrepreneurs to establish successful, enduring companies. Having invested $2.5 billion in nearly 450 companies resulting in more than 125 IPOs in 41 years, Venrock’s investment returns place it among the top tier venture capital firms that have achieved consistently superior performance. With a primary focus on technology, healthcare, and energy, portfolio companies have included Adify, Adnexus Therapeutics, Apple Computer, athenahealth, Centocor, Check Point Software, DoubleClick, Gilead Sciences, Idec Pharmaceuticals, Illumina, Intel, Ironwood, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Sirna Therapeutics, StrataCom, and Vontu. For more information, please visit Venrock’s website at www.venrock.com.

As Director of TechStars in New York City, David will co-lead the New York City TechStars program alongside TechStars’ Founder and CEO David Cohen. David Tisch is the Managing Member of Box Group, LLC, a New York City based seed-stage venture capital firm that focuses investments on disruptive technologies and exceptional entrepreneurial teams.

Prior to joining TechStars, David served as Executive Vice President of Interactive Strategies at kgb, a diversified global information services company. While at kgb, David focused on consumer facing initiatives, the companies rebranding efforts and served as special advisor to the CEO on new business opportunities. In addition, David founded and lead Knowmore.com, a social aggregation startup and wholly-owned subsidiary of kgb.

As an investor, advisor or mentor, David has worked with a variety of startups including Boxee, Flavors.me, CollegeOnly, Goodsie, GroupMe, Profitably, SuperKix, SneakerFiles, StatSheet and TroopSwap.

David has a B.A. in American History from the University of Pennsylvania and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

David blogs about his experiences at davidtisch.com. You can find David on Twitter @davetisch.